Durarara! Getting Ahead Falling Behind
by Yu-tan
Summary: An overarching series covering the twisted relationships that take root and grow in the city of Ikebukuro. Sometimes they sprout into demented saplings.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Durarara!!

O REC 23:02  
"I remember this old fairy tale of the swan maidens. A young man stumbles upon these beautiful women bathing- what a pervert, right? - who are actually swans. He sees the magical robes that allow them to transform back and he steals one, so one of the maidens cannot leave with her sisters. A pervert and a thief, you must be thinking. Well, since she cannot leave, the young man feigns ignorance and takes her into his care to live out their lives in domestic bliss. Or so he hopes. Hey Selty, have you ever heard of this fairy tale? Do you know if swan maidens are real?"

The young doctor turned away from the camera, addressing the Dullahan out of the frame. He leaned forward to see what was written on the phone extended towards him.

"Probably, but you aren't sure? I suppose without your full set of memories the knowledge of other supernatural creatures may be missing."

_Is your documentary about fairy tales now?_

"This story actually reminds me of you, Selty. If you think about it in the sense that your head is missing and you need your memories..."

_That makes you a pervert thief, doesn't it?_

Shinra laughed, leaning back in the high backed office chair. "A pervert, maybe, but I don't have your swan robe."

_So what's the rest of the story?_

"Right, I was getting to that. Well, the couple has several children and as they grow up, they sing a song revealing where the cloak is hidden. Or sometimes they ask why their mother weeps and find the cloak for her. Either way, the children are the one who leads her to find it and fly away. Which if you think about it, isn't very smart on the children's part considering how they don't have a mother anymore."

Selty rapidly tapped something out onto the screen of her phone, emphatically thrusting it at Shinra.

_Children?!_

Shinra couldn't help but laugh. Then he thought about it. "Well, someone knows. Maybe not your children," She couldn't bear any without functioning organs. "But the children of the city. Someone out there has to know, I guess," he admitted with some disappointment. "But is that really the issue, Selty?"

_?_

"I mean... what do you gain by recovering your head? Please, hear me out," he said, reaching boldly to stop her from typing a response. "It's not like your head was attached to your neck to begin with, right? "

_You wouldn't understanfffksfkfl  
_  
Her body tensed up with surprise when he embraced her. He felt no heartbeat beside his own, but there was a peculiar vibration as if those smokey particles were all resonating at the same time.

"Maybe you should just accept things the way they are now." Shinra knew he was being needlessly selfish, but he needed to know. "You know I lo-"

Selty was saved by her phone beeping, alerting her of a new message. She read it too quickly for Shina to catch anything besides the sender's number- it was from Heiwajima Shizuo.

_I've got to go._

Disentangling herself from Shinra, she left quickly, leaving the strained atmosphere behind.

Shinra sighed, leaning over to turn off the camera.

"Do you really want to fly away so badly?"

--  
When Selty arrived at the address Shizuo had sent her, she was greeted with a rather unusual sight.

"Take him," Shizuo growled, thrusting the unconscious Izaya towards her. She could tell it took every ounce of Shizuo's self control not to cast his nemesis into rush hour traffic. A black, amorphous shadow quickly materialized into a side car on the motorcycle and she gingerly put the unconscious man into the seat.

Shizuo was already halfway down the block, clearly disgusted with himself.

_...This is strange._


	2. Chapter 2

Twenty minutes earlier

"Shit."

For all his eloquent speeches and loquacious tendencies, that one word was entirely sufficient to describe his situation. Sometimes, when you have been shot in the gut, the intelligence was bad, and your phone is broken, that's the only word that will do.

Choices. Go out through the alleyway and expose himself, but that was a no go because someone might catch a glimpse of him and he wasn't sure he could get away this time.

There was the fire escape. It would be excruciatingly painful to try and climb it, but there was a better chance he could make it. Glaring up at the last rung of the metal ladder, he jumped up to grab it, grimacing in pain as it twisted through his abdomen. Ah, so the bullet was still in there. Wonderful.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?"

Like a shark to a blood in the water.

Izaya swore, letting go of the ladder to land lightly on his feet, but balls, that hurt. "Just the man I wanted to see. Lend me your cell phone."

"Like hell I will," Shizuo snarled, quite ready to finally give Izaya a well deserved ass kicking. But something was off- the way Izaya was leaning against the brick wall instead of his usual stance, the dark wet stain that had already soaked through his black shirt, the almost imperceptible stress on his breathing- "You got shot?" he growled, his tone an enigmatic mix of anticipation and curiosity.

"In my defense, it was a stray bullet that ricocheted-"

"Hit any vitals?" Shizuo asked abruptly, lighting a cigarette as a brief distraction..

Izaya grit his teeth. "No." The only reason he could think that Shizuo had not already taken him out with a sidewalk fixture was because the alley way was too narrow to throw anything into. But Shizuo was certainly not adverse to using his hands.

"Well, I'm going to fix that-."

"Text the deliverer. I need to speak with her about her head."

In the midst of the mounting urge for commit gross acts of violence, this one got through. Whether or not Izaya was telling the truth- he recalled how important that one particular subject was to her.

Izaya waited for his bluff to work, staring resolutely at Shizuo's retreating back. Shizuo would either call Celty, leave him to bleed out, or come back and finish the job.

"Shit." Shizuo swore loudly, standing at the border between the alley and the sidewalk where the pedestrians rushed by, absorbed in their own little worlds and their own little problems. Rapidly typing out a text message, he hit 'send' and took another deep drag, exhaling wisps of smoke into the night. He refused to look back in the alley, because he had a nagging feeling if he did, he'd just snap that louse's neck and be done with it.

Soon enough, he heard the distant rumble of an engine that also sounded distinctly like a horse.

* * *

"Guns are illegal, you know."

"You know they can hurt innocent people."

The two smiling youths were considerately informing the man they cornered, having already confiscated his weapon.

"Now do you wanna tell us what you were doing firing shots off in an alleyway?" Erika inquired, her grin mirroring her partner's. Sometimes, she hoped they struggled, just so they could try some new techniques.

"I-I d-didn't do anything! I swear!"

"What do you have on you, Erika?" Walker asked.

"Only the Bakemonogatari DVD I was going to return because of the scratched disc."

"I think I have a stapler... do you still have your box cutter?"

"Of course."

The inspiration for the sharp stationary implements was lost on the man, but the effect remained the same. His screams echoed and faded into the empty night.

* * *

"Orihara Izaya, being taken away by the headless rider? Mikado, you best be telling the truth because that's not something to lie about."

"I swear, I saw it with my own eyes!" Mikado insisted, keeping his voice hushed in the midst of everyone's lunch break conversations.

"That's quite a mystery," Kida said, looking contemplative for once rather than his usual happy go lucky expression. He knew first hand happy go lucky did not go with a man like Orihara Izaya at all.

"What do you think it means?" Mikado asked naively, his interest piqued by the role of the black rider.

"It means we should just forget about it."

That sort of response was odd enough for Mikado to take note of, but lunch was already over and Kida had returned to his own classroom.

"What makes him so fearsome?"


	3. Chapter 3

"Sushi! Cheap, good sushi!"

Not many people today wanted sushi. This made Simon's job difficult.

"Kadota-san, come and have some sushi," he offered with his usual smile and compulsory flier.

"No thanks, I'm looking for Erika and Walker, have you seen them?

"No I have not, but I have seen good sushi! It is at Russia Sushi!"

Kadota sighed, taking a pamphlet. "Okay Simon, I will check it out later when I find Walker and Erika.

That was too bad. It was Cheesecake Sushi special night. "Come to Russia Sushi!"

--  
"Good morning sunshine~"

He groaned, trying to reorient himself. There was an alley, there was Shizuo, there was the motorcycle, and now he was lying on Shinra's coffee table, currently being prepped to have a bullet slug extracted from his side. Shinra was sitting beside him, half his face covered by a surgical mask and currently pulling on a pair of latex gloves.  
"What time is it?" he muttered, his throat dry and his voice hoarse.

"Time for you to explain some things. Like why Celty brought you back with a bullet would and not a whole lot of answers."

The doctor was lining up an array of spotless surgical instruments. Izaya noticed Shinra hadn't given him any anasthetic yet.

"What has she told you so far?"

"Nothing much, except for the fact you said you had information about the location of her head which was the only reason why you made it here alive."

"Ah." That explained Shinra's rather dangerous expression. "That was a very good bluff I made out of self preservation.

Bullshit, Shinra thought. Izaya rarely even needed to bluff because he always had something up his sleeve.

"She's not going to be happy to know you lied."

"Well, it wasn't entirely a lie... Say, if I knew someone who knew exactly where it was... That's information enough, isn't it? The identity of that person?"

"And who might that person be?" Shinra said mildly, carefully using forceps to feel for the slug still left in Izaya's side.

"You, of course-" Izaya was cut off by the intense pain of having a pair of forceps dug into an open wound. White knuckled hands clenching the edge of the coffee table, he realized he might have gone a little too far. "N-not that I'd say anything..." It felt like Shinra was twisting it now and the pain was blinding.

"Not that you will ever say anything about that," Shinra said, maintaining his casual tone.

"R-right," he gasped, his cocky smile faltering for a moment. Certain topics made Shinra a very scary person. But, at the very least he got the confirmation he wanted. "You sure you know what you are doing?"

"I know how to treat a bullet wound."

"I mean with Celty-Ah, ah, I'll drop the subject," he conceded, after seeing Shinra's grip tighten again. Several agonizing unanesthetized minutes later, he was being sewn up and herded out the door with Shinra telling him it was better he leave before Celty returned and that he'll say his lead was a dead end.

"What are friends for," he mused, standing outside the apartment complex with an aching side. At least he got some party favors from the underground doctor.

--

"Oriha~ra-san, Cheap sushi, Just For You!"

He caught the information seller taking some very hesitant steps down the street.

"Would you like to come try? Special discount!" he offered cheerfully. To his pleasant surprise, he actually took him up on that offer. Good, because today was cheesecake sushi special.

--

"Mikado!"

Kida burst into his apartment, winded from having run the entire way from the station. "You are alive!" he shouted with relief.

"Uh... Why wouldn't I be," he replied a little sheepishly.

"I thought you were a goner!" Kida said, dramatically clutching Mikado to his chest. He forgot to use his indoor voice again. "Seriously! Who knows what I would have done if you were gone?"

"Ehhh, Kida, I can't breathe," Mikado complained, squirming. Kida had a flair for dramatics, but he could tell at his core he really was worried. "I'm fine, I'm perfectly fine as you can see..."

"Then what did you need those for?" Kida pointed to the pair of handcuffs abandoned carelessly on the floor.

Damnit.


End file.
